


i met you when i was 18

by thir13enth



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-28
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-08-08 23:09:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16438580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thir13enth/pseuds/thir13enth
Summary: Adam had thought that getting over Shiro would be the hardest thing he'd ever done. But that was before death took away any semblance of doubt.





	i met you when i was 18

Once, Adam believed time was money — that every second needed to be spent doing something, being productive, getting ahead in life — but now, he knows time is anything _but_ something that can be bought with all the riches of the worlds.

Time couldn’t be earned. Time couldn’t be deserved. Time couldn’t even be begged for, prayed for, traded or exchanged for — all the happiness of life, all the worth of the universe would not equal a second, or even a split moment extra with Shiro.

He learns this through the flickering headline on the television screen. It reads in all caps, the letters scrolling across the bottom of the screen under a neatly dressed broadcaster, who says those same words and some extra details in a solemn and serious face — in exactly the same tone as all the other news items of that morning.

_Kerberos. Mission failure. All crew members. Inconclusive. Most likely dead._

Time is inflexible. Time is relentless. Time is unforgiving.

Adam knows this now.

And he knows that just as much as he cannot bargain for more time with Shiro, he can neither plead for less time missing him.

.

.

He really doesn’t need it.

Therapy, that is.

But eventually, other colleagues notice that he hasn’t taken a day off from work, that he is still operating like nothing ever happened. His friends are worried about his flat answers and his furrowed eyebrows, the growing shadows under his dry eyes and the extra few drinks he swallows down in the evenings.

Everything’s fine. Really.

He’s managing just fine. He makes it to work on time, and not one of his students has failed their mid-year evaluations.

But eventually, one way or another, they all try to convince him to do something about his grief, probably talking amongst themselves and delegating each other to “accidentally” run into him in the elevator or drop by his apartment unannounced with some extra portions of food or inviting him over on the weekends to hang out — all the while giving their own spiel about how hard it is or how they can’t imagine what he’s going through.

And eventually, Adam gives in.

“Fine. I’ll go to therapy session.”

Iverson gives him a soft smile, reaching his hand out to rest on Adam’s left shoulder. “I think that would be best,” he says. “I’ve lost people before too. I know it’s hard.” A pause. “And for you, especially, since you were… together, to say the least.”

“Right,” Adam replies. He’s not sure what else to say. “I’m sure therapy will help somehow.”

.

.

It doesn’t, and Adam knows it the moment he sits down.

He’s sitting in a circle of six or seven people, one of them the supposed therapist. Everyone seems to have been here before, because they all look at him for a little too long when he enters the room.

He looks around too. He doesn’t know a single soul in here, and honestly, thank god that’s the case.

He introduces himself, and the therapist gives him a warm smile.

“Welcome,” she says.

And then they go around the room introducing themselves. There’s someone that lost their husband to cancer, someone that lost both of their kids in a car accident, someone that lost their grandmother to multiple medical comorbidities.

At some point, it’s his turn.

“Who are you thinking about?” she asks.

He furrows his eyebrows. “What do you mean? I’m not thinking about anyone.”

“What are you thinking about then?”

Adam hides a frown. He re-crosses his ankles and leans back into the chair, which creaks against his weight. The chair is one of those ones that were ubiquitous in public schools in the early 2000s — those shitty plastic chairs with metal legs, uncomfortable no matter what position.

He takes a short inhale and then holds the breath in his chest for a second, thinking.

“I’m not thinking about anything,” he finally says. “Just… I don’t know what I’m doing here. I don’t think this is helping me.”

“What makes you think that?”

What the fuck kind of question is that?

He snaps his head up, meeting the therapist’s eyes dead on. He chews on his words before he replies.

“I don’t know.” The words come stiff from his mouth. “I’m not feeling any better.”

“That’s okay. You can leave if you like. You don’t have to stay if you don’t think it’s helping you.”

He shakes his head. “No, this is supposed to help, isn’t it?” He looks for affirmation around the room, but everyone else’s eyes are blank. “This is _therapy_. It’s _supposed_ to work.”

The therapist nods patiently — but her calming air only pisses Adam off. “It works for many people, but many people also do quite well without it,” she says. She gives him a small smile, folding her hands neatly together on her lap. “You can stay for as long as you like. If you don’t want to participate today, you don’t have to.”

“Well then, what would I be doing here?” he retorts, his hands splaying in frustration.

“Everyone grieves differently,” she tells him. Her zen is infuriating, even if he knows that she’s just trying to do her job. “That’s the advantage of doing this as part of a group. You see that right in front of you.”

He hates this. He hates everything about this.

“This is _bullshit_. I thought this grief therapy shit was supposed to make it easier. I want to fucking move on already. I want to be fucking _done_ with this.”

“Therapy can make things easier, but therapy doesn’t change the grieving process. Everyone grieves differently, and therapy is supposed to help you develop strategies and techniques to make the grieving process easier.”

Adam shifts in his seat, crossing and uncrossing his arms again. “Whatever,” he says. “I don’t know why I’m here. Everyone told me to come so I did. That’s it. And now I know for sure I don’t want to be here.”

“If you’d like to leave, you can leave,” the therapist repeats. “I’m not going to make you stay if you don’t want to.”

This time, he does.

.

.

There’s some Spanish saying that goes something like how only a nail can drive another nail out, and Adam guesses the adage is supposed to apply to relationships.

One day when he’s desperate, he tests that wisdom.

He signs himself onto a dating app, bullshits his way through the stupid profile questions, puts up a generic picture of himself and then swipes through a selection of names and faces. He doesn’t really give too much thought into it. He just needs someone — anyone — to forget. He doesn’t need this person to replace the empty hole in his heart, much less occupy it for the future — he just needs to cut the aching in his chest and the bitter taste on his tongue.

The very next evening he has a date. His date suggests a place he’s never been to before, and honestly thank god, because the last thing Adam wants to do is go to a place haunted by memories he’s been struggling to let go.

His date is nice, friendly, and has a good sense of humor. Adam knows this, but he isn’t in the mood to laugh or play along. His date is empathetic and understanding, and when Adam mentions that he’s going through a rough patch in life, his date immediately forgives him for not being completely present. His date is soft and gentle and even asks for permission to kiss him. Adam allows a tight embrace and leans in to meet lips, and for a moment, he thinks that _this_ will be the moment he gets over Shiro —

But then he looks deep into the dark brown eyes staring back at him, and they don’t look at all like Shiro’s eyes.

Of course they don’t. They’re not Shiro’s eyes.

“Sorry,” he mutters through his lips, backing away.

“What?”

“I… I can’t,” he breathes. “I’m sorry.”

Alone on his way home, he deletes the app from his phone on his way home.

.

.

Shiro was supposed to die anyway, Adam reminds himself.

Shiro wasn’t always going to be forever.

Shiro never told him exactly how much time he had left — however much his doctor predicted for him to have — but Adam always knew that it was probably less than five years.

Shiro would have told him otherwise — or at least so Adam thinks.

And Shiro would have also said yes when Adam got down on one knee, instead of looking at him with wide forlorn eyes and an unsaid no on his lips.

_It’d make it harder for you_ , he had said. _I don’t want you to be alone. I want you to find someone else. I want you to be happy._

“Fucking idiot,” Adam mutters, to no one in particular. “You can’t make all the decisions.”

He looks up from staring at the floor. What time is it? He doesn’t bother checking his watch. His eyes scan his living room, the amber sunset light casting a forlorn yellow tinge and long shadows over everything. Dirty dishes and carry-out containers stacked on the coffee table, some crumbs of many somethings sprinkled over the carpet, unwashed clothes draping over every other surface, stacks of paper tossed on whatever free space is left.

Completely a mess.

Very unlike him.

Damn Shiro, Adam thinks. He’s changed him. He made him love when he hadn’t even been looking for anyone, and now that he’s gone, he’s made him someone he doesn’t want to be — an emotional mess.

.

.

Shiro’s also made him come back to the group therapy — something he didn’t plan on doing or intend to do when he woke up that morning.

“It’s good to see you,” the therapist says as he walks in.

He makes eye contact with her, but otherwise says nothing as he mechanically walks over to the back end of the room to unfold himself a metal chair. As he brings his seat to the circle, people move their chairs over to fit him in, the worn-out rubber bottoms of their chairs squeaking against the gym floor.

“We were just getting started. Why don’t you start off the introductions? Do you mind?”

Adam presses his lips closed.

“It’s Adam, right?”

He unclenches his jaw. “Yes.”

“Who are you thinking about, Adam?”

“I don’t want to talk about him. I just want to get over it.”

The therapist smiles gently at him. Always that gentle and soft smile. Seeing the length of her patience tired him.

“You will,” she assures him. “With time.”

He rolls his eyes, scoffing to himself. “I thought you said this was supposed to help you find techniques to manage grief,” he replies. He pauses because a hard ball suddenly forms tight in his throat. He drops his head down. “…And that’s what I want to do. And I don’t want to talk.”

He doesn’t see it, but he can sense that the therapist is nodding. “If you don’t want to talk today, that’s perfectly fine with me, and that’s perfectly fine with all of us, right?”

Adam doesn’t lift his head but his eyes carefully scan over the group around him.

Everyone nods.

.

.

_Don’t expect me to be here when you get back._

_I’ve got a class to teach._

How could he have let those be the last words he said to him?

He hates that he ever said them. He hates that he ever thought of thinking to say them. He hates that he ever even thought of them in the first place.

He was being selfish, he realizes now. He was being greedy.

Adam can’t help the doubt that creeps into his head.

Maybe if he had said better words, Shiro would have stayed. Maybe if he had thought just a little longer, Shiro would still be with him.

Maybe if he had been more understanding, more patient, more compassionate… Maybe if he had been better, Shiro would be in his arms now. Alive.

Those words were his desperation come alive, his denial that things were bound to end. Those words were the very last thing Adam thought he could do — the very last thing he could do for just an extra moment, an extra few seconds with him.

It’s now he realizes he would have done anything for Shiro to stay.

Even break up with him.

.

.

He doesn’t really remember where he put the rings.

Or at least that’s what he tells himself.

He knows they’re in his bedroom closet on the top shelf, just above his two black suit jackets, on top of the extra and ever-unused guest bedsheets and towels, inside of a large blue-topped plastic storage container under other empty product boxes and manufacturer papers that he never had the heart to throw away — specifically under the packaging of his headphones and sunrise alarm clock. They’re each in a black velvet-lined mahogany ring box, engraved to match. Sterling silver, with the inscriptions of their names on the inside.

They’re silver. Silver like Shirogane.

Just like they had discussed. Just like they had planned.

Everything was exactly as _he_ had wanted.

The only thing out of foresight was his answer. Shiro didn’t even see the rings before saying no to them.

Adam knew Shiro long enough to know that he could not control any of Shiro’s choices — and maybe Adam should have known then that maybe that was a sign that they were never meant to be forever.

.

.

“Who are you thinking about?”

Who is he thinking about? Who _else_ is he thinking about?

“Takashi—” and his voice collapses.

Takashi. The name rolls off his tongue so easily — as if he’s said it in a good morning every day, as if he’s said it between long kisses late at night, as if he’s said it casually between conversations with friends, as if he’s said it over a phone call back to his family — instead of slapping photo frames face down, deleting old texts and emails, putting everything that ever reminds him of anything into the trash or a storage box he locks away from himself, and waking up every morning with tired, dry, and edematous eyes he could barely see out of —

“You’re thinking about Takashi,” the therapist repeats back to him, cutting his thoughts.

His voice croaks. “Yes.”

“Can you tell us about Takashi?”

Adam lifts his gaze off the floor. He meets the therapist’s eyes first. He looks to the person to the right, then the next person, and then the person after. Their eyes are all the same — kind, attentive, caring, supportive, unjudging.

His silence prompts another question from the therapist.

“When did you meet Takashi?”

Adam blinks, opening and closing his mouth once or twice before forcing the words off his chest.

“I met him at the Garrison.”

**Author's Note:**

> you know where to find me:
> 
> tumblr @ ahumanintraining  
> twitter @ napsbeforesleep


End file.
